Everybody wants spirituality. To be a good person means to walk in G-d's ways. How does that translate to reality? The only guidebook to spirituality that has stood the test of time is the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light onto the nations. But if you are not a born Jew, you have to convert, which is not so easy!! If you do convert, it is a lot of work to be a Jew (three times a day prayer, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath).
This blog will show you how to be Jewish without the work!!
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Finally, Ateret Cohanim Takes Possession of Old City Hotel It Won in Court By David Israel and Hebrew U Scientists: 1/1000 of a Hair-Thin Lenses Coming Soon to Cellphones, Eyeglasses & Drones and 22% of Arab Teachers in Israeli Education System Not Trained in Country, Many Hostile and Biden’s Ambassador To The Anti-Israel Lobby By Daniel Greenfield
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Finally, Ateret Cohanim Takes Possession of Old City Hotel It Won in Court By David Israel
photo Credit: Google Maps
Imperial and Petra hotels in the Old City of Jerusalem.
After 18 years of a legal battle between the Ateret Cohanim association and the Greek Patriarchate, on Sunday morning, members of the association took possession of the Petra Hotel near the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, Ha'aretz reported.
In June 2019, The Jerusalem District Court ruled that Ateret Cohanim had legal rights over three large areas in strategic locations in the Old City of Jerusalem, currently populated by mostly Arab residents. In 2004, three foreign real estate companies signed under a veil of great secrecy three different contracts with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate which owned the assets.
The publication of the deal in 2005 led to a crisis in the Greek Church in Jerusalem, which ended in the unprecedented dismissal of the patriarch Irenaios Skopelitis. His successor, Theophilus III, tried to deny the deal and cancel it, but the Supreme Court upheld it.
In the first transaction, Berisford Investments Limited purchased a lease for the Petra Hotel, a four-story building located at Omar Ibn al-Hatab Square, between the Jaffa Gate and the Arab market. It is a 99-year lease, with an option for another 99 years.
In the second transaction, under similar lease terms, Richards Marketing Corporation acquired the adjacent two-story Imperial Hotel, with the stores below.
In the third transaction, Gallow Global Limited acquired the rights to a structure called Beit Azmiya, in the Bab a-Khuta neighborhood of the Old City.
Ateret Cohanim, which deals with the redemption of land in Jerusalem, is credited with locating the assets and negotiating for their purchase. In recent years, Ateret Cohanim has been waging a legal battle against the Kirsch family, which rents the Petra Hotel from the patriarchy and runs it. On Sunday morning, the association's officials, accompanied by police, entered the first floor of the hotel.
The Church, which was humiliated by the revelations of the three spectacular purchases, initially denied they had ever been signed by Patriarch Irenaios Skopelitis and that any monetary consideration was received in exchange for them. Then the same church claimed the director of its finance department had acted without authorization when he made the sale.
Judge Gila Kanfi-Steinitz, deputy head of the Jerusalem district court, ruled in 2019 that there is no dispute that Irenaios had the authority to enter into agreements on behalf of the Church and that there is no doubt that the director of the church's finance department who signed the agreements acted as his proxy.
Judge Knafi-Steinitz also ruled that "the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient proof on the required level to their claims of bribery or corruption that underlie the transactions. Therefore, the result is that it is necessary to determine that the three transactions are valid," she concluded.
The judge also ruled that "there is no disputing the fact that the plaintiffs were paid the full consideration for the transactions."
Hebrew U Scientists: 1/1000 of a Hair-Thin Lenses Coming Soon to Cellphones, Eyeglasses & Drones
Prof. Uriel Levy.
Perhaps you are wearing glasses while reading this or have a cell phone, binoculars, a virtual reality headset, or a telescope. All of them rely on high-quality lenses, which are bulky, expensive, and heavy—especially when considering drones and satellites, where every gram counts.
However, that is all about to change. New, cheap, lightweight flat lenses – around a thousandth of the thickness of a human hair – will be making their move the research labs to our shops and homes. Currently, there are several kinds of flat-lens technologies available. However, the challenge is to know which version is best suited for the specific application for which it was designed. This problem has been solved by Professor Uriel Levy, Director of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, together with postdoc student Dr. Jacob Engelberg. They established a standard method to compare flat-lens technologies and designs and published their findings in the leading journal Nature Photonics (Standardizing flat lens characterization).
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New, flat lenses offer clear advantages over conventional lenses. With conventional lenses, the "stronger" the lens (the higher the prescription), the greater the curvature. Further, the larger the lens diameter, the thicker the lens. This has implications—in both weight and size–for products, such as consumer electronics, cellphones, VR headsets, and drones where the push is to make them as light as possible.
The new flat lenses are incredibly thin and as the name suggests – they are flat rather than curved. However, there are different flat lenses designs and technologies on the market and few guidelines vis a vis which lens would be most appropriate for a given need. Further, claims of success have been difficult to assess since there is no universally accepted method for comparison of these lenses. And, with a simple method of production, based on those used to create silicon chips, these new lenses will be extremely cheap and readily available. Engelberg and Levy stepped in to create a proper method of comparison. "Adopting the standardized characterization methods that we've proposed will help this field progress," he shared.
22% of Arab Teachers in Israeli Education System Not Trained in Country, Many Hostile
Children in Gaza City walk to school on their first day of the new school year. Gaza, Aug 16, 2021.
Over 22% of the Arab teachers in Israel's education system received their training outside the country, and in particular, in the Palestinian Authority. This information was discussed at the Knesset's Education, Culture, and Sports Committee during a special session on "terrorist teachers."
The Education, Culture, and Sports Committee convened on Sunday for a discussion on the "terrorist teachers" following terror attacks committed in recent months in Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva by terrorists who were also teachers in the Israeli system who educated students.
Committee Chair MK Sharren Haskel, who initiated the session, stated that "education is the thing that is most important to our society, and we want to make sure that educators who are involved in terrorist activity will be removed immediately from the education system."
"Over 22% of the Arab teachers in the education system received their training outside the State of Israel. We are receiving indications from the field that hundreds of teachers are educating against the State of Israel and their students are absorbing the anti-Zionist values of these terrorist teachers. Universities in Hebron issue training certificates to teachers, but there is no supervision of the content that these teachers receive in institutions that are hostile to the state," she warned.
She called on the police to develop ways to transfer intelligence and information on complaints concerning incitement by teachers and procedures for monitoring incitement on social media.
She also demanded that the Ministry of Education provide her with information on cases in which a hearing was conducted for incitement in the past year.
MK Meir Porush voiced concern that further cases of incitement could take place in the education system, saying that "in the past months there were two teachers that became terrorists and murdered Jews; we have to assume that there are more teachers of this kind who are educating towards terrorism at this time."
In the course of the debate, the participants voiced concern regarding the lack of supervision over the values and messages being taught to the Arab students. MK Ruth Wasserman Lande said she has been "following developments in Arab society for years. We have to have a finger on the pulse and quickly identify teachers who are suspected of activity that is hostile toward the State of Israel."
According to data presented to the committee, about 5,500 teachers who teach in schools in the Arab sector were trained in the PA, and this is classified as training abroad.
MK Orit Strock cautioned that "if we don't stop absorbing in Israel teachers who studied in the Palestinian Authority, we will see more terrorist attacks by these teachers or by their students."
She proposed that the country not to give authorization to teachers who studied in PA.
MK Itamar Ben Gvir commented on the fact that the terrorist who committed the Be'er Sheva attack last week and murdered four Israelis in an ISIS-inspired stabbing spree had been part of the education system for years.
"The police and education system should answer for the fact that this terrorist was part of the education system. Today there are dozens of teachers, perhaps even hundreds, who are under investigation on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity," he said.
Tzipy Weinberg, Director of the Department for Evaluation of Foreign Academic Degrees at the Ministry of Education, admitted that the ministry does not check the content of the courses learned by the PA-trained teachers when certifying them.
Yehuda Sharabany, of the Im Tirtzu Zionist movement, replied that "it's unthinkable that the Ministry of Education doesn't check the curriculum in an in-depth manner, only in an 'administrative' manner, and automatically recognizes degrees awarded by teaching institutions in the Palestinian Authority. This policy of turning a blind eye must stop before it's too late."
In the past year, just two warnings were received by the education system about teachers against whom terror-related criminal proceedings are being conducted. Adv. Liron Sfarad of the Ministry of Education's Legal Department said that "as soon as information reaches the Ministry of Education from the Shin Bet, there are legal tools to remove the suspected teacher from educational activity."
Lior Tuvia, Director of the Ministry of Education's Security Department, said that in the past nine months, his department conducted five hearings, and there were no cases of dismissal.
Yaakov Avitan of the Israel Police said that police has a system that reports in real-time to the education authorities on individual cases.
Biden's ambassador to Israel appeared at a pro-BDS group's webinar co-hosted by its CEO, who had described Israel as an "oppressive regime", and told its audience that the real problem with the Palestinian Authority funding terrorism is that "it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'"
He also told the anti-Israel group which had cheered the Ben & Jerry's boycott that, "your agenda is where my heart is."
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At this rate, Thomas Nides will be hugging and kissing Hamas leaders by the end of the year.
Expectations for Nides were already pretty low when the Biden administration announced that it had picked Obama's former deputy secretary of state as its ambassador to Israel.
Hillary Clinton was going to make Nides her chief of staff, but once Hillary in the White House became as likely as peace with Hamas and the PLO, Nides had to settle for being Biden's bully in Jerusalem while his wife who is a VP at CNN stays on in Washington D.C.
Nides' main qualification for the job had been yelling "You don't want to f***ing defund UNESCO" at a former Israeli ambassador. He had also vocally opposed efforts to defund UNRWA and stop subsidizing the terror refugee industry. He has also served on the board of the International Rescue Committee which has repeatedly attacked Israel.
J Street, the anti-Israel pressure group, welcomed Nides' nomination and announced that it "looked forward to working" with him. Other anti-Israel groups including the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now echoed the sentiments.
It didn't take long for Nides to justify their faith in his hostility to the Jewish State.
Early on, Nides announced that he wanted to open an occupation consulate to the terrorists in Jerusalem, over the opposition of the Israeli government, and that he would not visit those parts of Israel wrongly described as "settlements" because they are claimed by Islamic terrorists.
"I absolutely will not," he replied.
That was an even more extreme position than the one adopted by Obama's ambassador, Dan Shapiro, who had privately visited homes in those areas where many Americans live.
Nides however did meet with Mansour Abbas, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's United Arab List, which played a key role in removing Netanyahu from office and replacing him with a leftist coalition government.
"When it comes to Israel, I have no ideology," Nides had initially claimed. Then on a webinar by the anti-Israel APN group, he let his freak flag fly and admitted what everyone already knew.
"I'm center-left," he joked. "I'm left generally, but I put in the 'center' just to make myself feel better."
It got worse from there.
"You have a clear agenda. I think your agenda is where my heart is," Nides told Americans for Peace Now.
What is APN's agenda? The anti-Israel group opposes Jews living in Jerusalem, opposes anti-BDS legislation, and opposes Jews defending themselves against Islamic terrorism.
APN CEO Hadar Susskind praised Ben & Jerry's decision to boycott Israel as a "principled moral stance which we fully support".
He claimed that the Jewish outrage over Amnesty International libeling Israel as an apartheid state was "manufactured" and that the real issue is that Israel maintains an "endemic, oppressive regime, in which the… human rights of millions of Palestinians are ruthlessly violated."
That "clear agenda" is where the rotten heart of Biden's ambassador to Israel lies.
The APN webinar was co-hosted by Susskind and teachers' union boss Randi Weingarten. Weingarten, an APN board member, had previously ranted that "American Jews are now part of the ownership class… who now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it" when asked by a Jewish journalist if unions like hers had too much power.
Weingarten's lover, Sharon Kleinbaum, had faced a member revolt over her extreme anti-Israel views which included reading the names of dead Hamas terrorists alongside Israeli casualties from the pulpit, and providing space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
Biden has since appointed Kleinbaum to the Commission on International Religious Freedom despite her support for Cuomo's discrimination against Orthodox Jews during the pandemic.
So this gathering of antisemites was old home week for a member of the Biden administration.
Nides told Susskind and Weingarten that he and Biden wanted to divide Jerusalem and that "my job is to knock down things that make that possibility impossible."
The leading thing to knock down would be the Jewish State.
Nides ranted that his priority was fighting to prevent Jews from living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been captured by invading Muslim armies in 1948 and were liberated from their occupiers in 1967 during the Six Day War.
"We can't have the Israelis doing settlement growth, both in East Jerusalem or the West Bank," Nides whined. He failed to explain how Jews living in the city of King David and King Solomon, of Jewish kings and prophets, could be occupying "settlements".
"I can't stop everything, just so we're clear, I have to pick my battles," Nides told his anti-Israel audience at the APN webinar. "E-1 was a disaster, I went full bore on E-1."
E-1 would begin at Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Perhaps Nides would also like to evict the Jews who have been buried there for thousands of years for also being "settlers".
Nides apologized to his Americans for Peace Now audience for not being able to stop every Jew from living in Jerusalem. "I'd be lying to you if every single house… in east Jerusalem or the West Bank I could stop… I can't stop everything, just so we are clear."
"I'm a bit of a nag on this, including the idea of settlement growth – which infuriates me," Nides fumed, as if he were the proconsul of an occupying regime tasked with policing the natives rather than a diplomatic envoy dispatched by an ally to cooperate on regional security.
A few years ago, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act. The law was named after Taylor Force: an American military veteran murdered in Tel Aviv by an Islamic terrorists. The Palestinian Authority, the PLO government in Ramallah, treated Force's killer as one of its fighters and put his family on a generous pension. This 'Pay to Slay' program pays out millions to imprisoned Islamic terrorists or their families as a reward for killing Jews. The Taylor Force Act cut off a lot of American subsidies to the PLO until such a time as it stopped funding terrorism.
Nides used the PLO term for 'Pay to Slay', describing them as "martyr payments".
Islamic terrorists describe their crimes as "martyrdom", an American ambassador should use the term "terrorism" instead of talking like a Jihadist.
Biden's ambassador further claimed that the issue with, "these martyr payments" is that they "have caused an enormous amount of problems' because it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'"
Rather than vocally condemn the PLO for subsidizing the murder of Americans and Jews, Nides only appeared to be concerned that the terror payments were an "excuse" for Jewish "haters" to cut off funding to the terrorists.
It's no wonder that he recently tweeted, "Pleased to see lots for Palestinians in the budget just signed by @POTUS Biden: $144 million increase (now $219 million) for Economic Support Funds, $40 million for security forces training in the WBank, and $50 million for 2nd year of the Nita Lowey MEPPA Fund."
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned Nides' webinar with APN stating that a "U.S. official should not be legitimizing the pro-BDS group Peace Now."
ZOA President Morton A. Klein declared that he "strongly condemns U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides' immoral, anti-Jewish, discriminatory anti-Israel statements".
Unfortunately, Nides is characteristic of the anti-Israel Biden administration.
The Americans for Peace Now webinar was co-hosted by Randi Weingarten, a close ally of the Biden administration. Beyond Weingarten, the APN board includes top lefty digital campaigner Mik Moore, top leftist donor Danny Goldberg, HRW's Kathleen Peratis, Christine Blasey Ford lawyer Debra Katz, and other Democrat political establishment figures.
Nides knew exactly whom he was talking to and who his real audience at this event was.
Much as when Stuart Eizenstat, contacted Jake Sullivan, currently Biden's National Security Advisor but then Hillary's foreign policy advisor, using Nides as his referral, and telling the Clinton campaign, "I am respected by the J Street group" and vouching that he had convinced the Israeli ambassador "to end the Israeli Embassy boycott of J Street".
The anti-Israel establishment controls the Democrats. Any ambassador to Israel is going to be vetted by them. Nides wasn't picked by Biden, he was picked by J Street, APN, and other anti-Israel hate groups. His job isn't to build relations with Israel, but with its haters.
Tom Nides is not the ambassador to Israel. He's the ambassador to the anti-Israel lobby.
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